Technical Field
Embodiments of the present invention generally relate to a blade used for cleaning and an image forming apparatus, such as a copier, a printer, a facsimile machine, or a multifunction peripheral having at least two of copying, printing, facsimile transmission, plotting, and scanning capabilities, that includes the blade.
Description of the Related Art
In electrophotographic image forming apparatuses, after a toner image is transferred from a surface of an image bearer such as a photoconductor onto a transfer sheet or an intermediate transfer member, a cleaning device removes toner remaining on the surface of the image bearer.
Cleaning devices employing a cleaning blade, shaped like a strip, are widely used for simplicity in structure and high cleaning capability. There are single-layer blades and multilayer blades used for cleaning.